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.116 S84 
Copy 1 



A PLANTATION EXPERIMENT 



BY 



ALFRED HOLT STONE 

Bunleith, Miss. 



reprinted from 

The Quarterly Journal of Economics 

Vol. XIX., February, 1905 




436 <S* ¥■ 



STOCKHOLDERS' PROFITS FROM SUBSCRIPTIONS 269 

share. If now 250,000 new shares are offered at par, 
the investment becomes $115,000,000 and the nominal 
capital $125,000,000, representing an investment of $92 
per share. Here, in an over-capitalized system, the average 
investment per share is raised by $2. On the other hand, 
if the investment had been $125,000,000 and the capital 
stock $100,000,000, the investment would have been $125 
per share; and, with the increase of 250,000 shares at 
par, the average would be reduced to $120 per share. 

While the privilege which is offered at or above par 
cannot, strictly speaking, be said to constitute stock- 
watering, it is, nevertheless, a very efficient method of 
concealing the real earnings of a railway system. In the 
first place the size of the returns from this source is not 
generally known. In the second place, since these privi- 
leges are usually offered at or above par, the fact is lost 
sight of that there is, in a sense, as shown above, an 
unnecessary increase in the claims upon the company to 
pay dividends. But since, as stated above, the tendency 
of this kind of privilege is towards the equalization of 
the investment in the system with its capitalization, this 
second consideration loses importance. 

Thus, while the stock dividend will always be opposed 
as a method of stock-watering, the privileged subscrip- 
tion, so long as the privileges are not accorded at a figure 
below par, will be recognized as, on the whole, a legiti- 
mate method of increasing the capital stock and obtain- 
ing funds for the purposes of corporate expansion. This 
method is unquestionably legal; and, as long as the in- 
vestment increases equally with the capitalization, there 
is not likely to be any serious opposition to its use. 

Thomas Warner Mitchell. 

University of Pennsylvania. 






A PLANTATION EXPERIMENT. 1 

In a paper on "The Negro in the Yazoo-Mississippi 
Delta," read at the fourteenth annual meeting of the Amer- 
ican Economic Association, 2 I briefly touched upon the 
conduct of a plantation in which I was interested. Because 
of a certain degreee of novelty attaching to some of the 
features which characterized the business relations be- 
tween the plantation management and its negro labor, I 
felt justified in referring to these transactions as an "ex- 
periment." It is to a discussion of this experiment, six 
years after its inception, that the present paper is chiefly 
addressed. 

An adequate supply of labor is the first essential in the 
business of raising cotton. To secure it constitutes the 
most serious problem confronting the plantation manage- 
ment. Not for forty years has the supply equalled the 
demand in the alluvial section of Mississippi. Here the 
negro still has almost a monopoly of the field of manual 
labor, though at last his supremacy has been threatened 
by the white man. So great is the annual competition 
among planters for negro labor that the latter is afforded 
opportunities for driving bargains superior to those pos- 
sessed by any other class of agriculturists with which I have 
any acquaintance. There is absolutely no fixed basis 
among planters for making terms with labor, and in con- 
sequence contracts vary through a wide range of condi- 
tions. Any negro family, though it consist of only a man 
and his wife, and have not a dollar on earth, will be taken 
into partnership with the planter; for that is the real nature 
of the share contract. The planter will locate the family 
for the year in a comfortable house, on its proper allotment 
of as good land as can be found in America. He will fur- 

IDunleith Plantation is in Washington County, Mississippi, on the Southern 
Railway. 

J Washington, D.C., December 27-30, 1901. Papers and Proceedings, pp. 235- 




A PLANTATION EXPERIMENT 271 

nish the land (which includes house, fuel, water, and garden 
free), seed to plant it, and team and implements with which 
to cultivate it. This is the planter's part, and against it 
the negro furnishes his labor, and agrees to make and gather 
the crop. The two divide whatever is raised, share and 
share alike. In addition the planter supplies the share- 
hand with food, clothing, tobacco, medicine, and medical 
attention. He does this from the day the family reaches 
the plantation until the day it decides to "move," or, rather, 
until the planter learns of such decision. He hazards his 
advances upon the sole security of the crop, and looks to 
the negro's share for his reimbursement. 

In the paper to which I have referred I made this state- 
ment: "There is scarcely a planter in all this territory who 
would not gladly make substantial concessions for an as- 
sured tenantry. I do not mean for negroes who would 
stay with him always, and never take advantage of an op- 
portunity for genuine betterment, but merely for such as 
would remain with him only so long as they were willing 
to work at all under the same conditions, and should re- 
ceive honest and considerate treatment at his hands." 1 
I would to-day, and with all possible emphasis, reiterate 
the assertion of three years ago. 

It was to the desire and hope of building up some such 
"assured tenantry" that our experiment largely owed its 
inception. Its salient features were: uniformity of tenant 
system, all land being rented at a fixed cash rental; the 
sale of stock, implements, and wagons to tenants upon 
exceptionally favorable terms ; the exercise of proper super- 
vision over the crop; the use of a contract defining in de- 
tail the undertakings of each party; the handling and dis- 
position of the gathered crop by the plantation manage- 
ment. Let there be no misunderstanding of the motives 
behind all this. There was nothing philanthropic about 
it. It was a business proposition, pure and simple, but 
certainly one with two sides to it. The plan was to select 
a number of negro families, offer them the best terms 

1 Papers and Proceedings, pp. 259, 260. 



272 QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS 

a i id most advantageous tenant relation, and so handle 
i lie in and their affairs as to make them reach a condition 
approaching as nearly as possible that of independence. 
The hope was that, having accomplished this purpose, we 
would thereby also have in large measure solved the 
labor problem, having attached to the plantation by ties 
of self-interest a sufficient number of these independent 
renters to make us in turn measurably independent of the 
general labor situation. The problem before us was to 
place in the hands of these people the means of acquiring 
something for themselves, and then, in every instance of 
deficient individual initiative, by proper supervision make 
them acquire it. 

The principal statistical features of the experiment 
during the five-year period which witnessed its beginning 
and its practical abandonment may be thus summarized. 1 
We brought to the plantation, at the close of the season of 
1898, 30 new families, and began the first year, 1899, with 
a total of 58. On 1,064 acres of cotton land we made 
but 459 bales of 500 pounds average, a family average 
of 7.9 bales. The average price received was 7.50 cents 
per pound; and the entire crop, cotton and seed, brought 
$21 .(iii.l.ss, or a family average of $373.51. Of the families 
on the place, 26, or 44.8 per cent., left at the end of the year. 
We moved in 27 families, and, with the 59 which the addi- 
tion gave us, cultivated 1,048 acres of cotton in 1900. The 
crop was 817 bales, or 13.8 per family. It sold at an aver- 
age price of 9.94 cents, and with its seed brought $47,541.66. 
This was an average cash product value of $805.79 per 
family. 2 The number of families who left the place at the 
close of the year was 13, or 22 per cent, of the total. We 

'The number of person* to the averuge family remains practically stationary 
al about 3.7. See Papers and Proceedings, p. 269. 

2 The "cash product" value must not be confused with the total crop value 
shown for this year in "The Negro in the Delta," nor the total acreage given there 
wjtli the cotton acreage shown above. It may be explained that the number of 
familn" given in tin- previous paper, til, included 2 occupying somewhat anom- 
alous tenant relations, who have been omitted here. The number of bales given 
here — 817 — is correct, instead of 818, as shown in the other paper. Papers and 
Proceedings, p. 269. 



A PLANTATION EXPERIMENT 273 

secured 15 new ones, and had on the place 61 families in 
1901. We had this year in cotton 1,348 acres, and raised 
1,270 bales, 20.8 to the family. At an average price of 
7.90 cents for the cotton this crop, including seed, realized 
$60,742.04, being $995.77 per family. We lost 16 families 
this year, 26.2 per cent, of the whole force, and moved in 
24 new squads, which gave us 69 for 1902. The latter year 
we raised 1,131 bales of cotton on 1,341 acres. Seed and 
cotton brought $54,593.26, the average price for the latter 
being 8.08 cents per pound. The average product of cotton 
was 16.4 bales per family, the average value of cotton and 
seed $791.20. At the end of the year we lost 17 families, 
24.6 per cent, of the total, and moved in 23 for the following 
year. This gave us 75 squads for 1903. We cultivated 
1,392 acres of cotton, and raised 741 bales, 9.8 to the family. 
This brought 11.77 cents per pound, the cotton and seed 
selling for $53,527.73, or an average of $713.70 per family. 
At the close of the season 31 families, 41.3 per cent, of our 
working force, left the plantation. 1 

During the period under review the tenant system of 
the plantation was changed from an exclusively rent basis 
to just as nearly an exclusively share basis as it was possi- 
ble to reduce it. In the first two years the entire planta- 
tion was in the hands of renters, while of the cotton acreage 
in 1903 they worked but 54.6 per cent., and produced but 
45.3 per cent, of the crop. This has been still further re- 
duced, and of a total cultivated acreage of 1,577 in 1904 
they worked but 465 acres, or less than 30 per cent. The 
number of families on the place increased from 58 to 75 
during this period ; the number renting fell from 58 to 36, 
a decline in per cent, of the total number from 100 to 48. 
Here, again, the renters lost still further in 1904, falling to 
30 families out of 79,— a decline to less than 38 per cent, 
of the total. In 1899 they held 73 head of work stock, 
94.8 per cent, of the total number on the place. This fell 

1 The above figures and others of more or less interest in connection with this 
discussion are given in a table appended to this article. For aid in compiling 
the data I wish to acknowledge my great indebtedness to my business associate, 
Mr. Julian H. Fort. 



274 QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS 

to 60 bead in 1903, which was but 47.6 per cent, of the total. 
Here, too, there has been another decline, the 60 in 1903 
having fallen to but 23 in 1904. 

But the story of the decline of the renter on Dunleith 
Plantation — of the failure to accomplish what was at least 
hoped for under the system inaugurated in 1899 — cannot 
be told in any statistical display, nor can the reasons which 
(•(unpolled the abandonment of the experiment be set forth 
in a column of figures. Back of the inception of the scheme 
was the desire to create a satisfied and satisfactory force of 
reasonably permanent tenants. Not that we were ever 
sanguine enough to hope to have them all in this category. 
We would have been satisfied with a group of 50 per cent. 
(if the total, or even with less. It was hoped to accomplish 
our object by a direct appeal to self-interest. We demon- 
strated our ability to make independent, property-owning 
families out of poverty-stricken material. These families 
in turn demonstrated the fact of their independence by 
severing relations with us almost as promptly as we put 
them on their feet. After the termination of three years 
we had begun to feel reasonably certain that even the most 
practical appeal we could make to radically improved 
material welfare would be generally overcome b} r an ap- 
parently instinctive desire to "move." After the experi- 
ence of five years we were quite satisfied of our entire in- 
capacity to make the average plantation negro realize the 
remotest causal relation between stability and prosperity. 

We were not surprised to have 26 families leave us the first 
pear, nor wore we especially concerned over the departure 
of 13 the second. It was not alone the number who left 
each year, but likewise the increasing annual drain on 
the property involved in their departure that forced us to 
realize the utter impossibility as a business proposition of 
continuing our general system. In operating a planta- 
tion, .-lock and implements rank with labor as necessary 
complements. A cardinal feature of our plan involved the 
placing of the first two essentials in the hands of the latter. 
If the labor could be depended upon to remain on the 



A PLANTATION EXPERIMENT 275 

property under normal conditions a reasonable average 
length of time, this result would, of course, have been merely- 
incidental to a successful conclusion of the experiment. 
If, however, the laborers proved conclusively that they could 
not be so depended upon, then to have continued to put 
the business at their mercy by giving them control over 
everything necessary to its conduct would have been ex- 
tending a foolhardy invitation to ultimate disaster. It 
is bad enough to have to face a general exodus of labor, 
but such a contingency becomes doubly serious when it 
involves the loss of stock and implements as well. There 
are on the plantation to-day but two head of work stock 
that were there in 1899. What has transpired gradually, 
and without serious consequences, might easily have oc- 
curred in a single year with disastrous results, had we 
allowed the acquisition of stock by the labor to proceed 
far enough. I wish it understood that not the slightest 
obstacle is placed in the way of a tenant's acquiring imple- 
ments and stock, but also that we no longer sell him these 
things on long time, nor do we otherwise personally en- 
courage their purchase. We simply endeavor to fill the 
place of each departing renter with a sharehand, and try 
to confine such renting as we are compelled to do to such 
as come to us with stock of their own. In short, we are 
no longer engaged in the altruistic enterprise of convert- 
ing shiftless and empty-handed negroes into desirable and 
well-equipped tenants for the temporary benefit of other 
planters. 

From 1899 to 1903, leaving out of consideration the 30 
new families brought in at the beginning of the former 
year, we moved in 124 families. In the same period we 
lost 103. Of the 79 families on the place in 1904 but 8 were 
with us in 1899. Of the 103 who have left, some with little, 
some with much, not one has become an owner of land. 
Most have simply continued as tenants elsewhere. Many 
have lost what they carried away, and have become share- 
hands on other plantations. Some have dropped into the 
ranks of day laborers. A few have drifted into towns. 



L>7«; QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS 

Let me illustrate one of these removals. In December, 
1 900, we moved in a crew of 7 people. They all represented 
themselves as working hands, though one of the men was 
over sixty-five, with a wife past sixty. Their entire outfit 
consisted of a horse, worth at a liberal valuation $50, and $58 
worth of miscellaneous and indescribable household effects. 
In December, 1903, while riding over the place one day, 
my attention was arrested by a procession slowly approach- 
ing me. It consisted partly of two wagons, one buggy, 
two mules, one horse, three cows, two calves, and five 
dogs, — the property of this same crew of seven. In addi- 
tion they had with them outside wagons enough to assist 
them in hauling away 285 bushels of corn, $190 worth of 
household effects (including a sewing-machine for each 
woman and a gun for each man), and a half-dozen crates 
of hogs and several of poultry. During the three years 
they had paid rent and accounts amounting to $4,168.96, 
had received in cash $747.85, and had cash paid for help 
in their crops to the amount of $393.90. Their accounts, 
of course, included a variety of purchases in addition to 
their living expenses. They carried away $1,100 worth of 
personal property. They left to get rid of the supervision 
incident to plantation management, and removed a short 
distance to the property of a non-resident, and secured their 
advances from a merchant. In November last I learned 
that the head of the squad had applied to a neighboring 
planter for a location for 1905, and wanted the latter to 
lift a debt of $1,000 for him. 1 

Of those who have left I have said that it was not so much 
their number as their condition that concerned us. In 
tli is connection let us look into the condition of the thirty- 
one families who left us at the close of 1903. It may sug- 
gest itself to some that the single illustration just given can- 
not be typical of the possible consequences of the removal 
of a lar-re number of renters at one time, but that it is 

' 8ince the above was put in print this squad has returned to us, to make a crop 
the present year. It surrendered all it had, save household effects, to its merchant, 
ami in a-Mition we advanced f75 to cover a balance. It begins where it started 
before, with nothing, and this time will work on shares. 



A PLANTATION EXPERIMENT 277 

an isolated instance, selected to prove a case. A study of 
the entire group of families who left that same year will 
also serve as a reply. Thirteen of these families were 
renters, and carried with them the following personal prop- 
erty:— 

25 head of stock $3,125.00 

9 wagons 360.00 

8 cows and calves 200.00 

Implements 325.00 

" Household effects 650.00 

1,400 bushels of corn 700.00 

$5,360.00 

They also had between $800 and $900 in cash; but, as this 
is an estimate it is not included. One of these families had 
rented 23 acres of land, and had been paid a cash balance 
of $659.60. Another rented 25 acres, and drew a cash 
balance of $734.72. Of the 31 families 18 were sharehands, 
and had but $360 worth of property, and that in the shape 
of household effects. It is not difficult to see why the 
removal of the 13 renters was a more serious matter than 
the loss of the 18 sharehands. 

We hear a great deal about the unequal distribution of 
wealth in this country, but I have always believed the 
wealth of the American negro to be more unequally shared 
than that of any other class of our population. Of course, 
these figures are too insignificant to be worth anything 
whatever in this connection, nor is this paper concerned 
with such a discussion. The remark is suggested, however, 
by a glance at the average holdings of these two groups 
of families. If we stop with the statement that 31 families 
owned $5,720 worth of property, we have the very fair 
showing of $184.51 per family. The actual distribution 
of their total holdings, however, gives the renters $412.30 
per family, and the sharehands but $20. This inequality 
holds also with the 79 families on the plantation in 1904. 
They own, all told, $7,180 worth of property. This would 
be $90.88 per family. An analysis, however, shows that 



278 QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS 

30 renters own $177.33 per family, or $5,320 of the total. 
(This is within $40 of the exact amount taken away by the 
13 renters in 1903.) Of the balance, $1,120 is held by 12 
sharehands, an average per family of $93.33. The re- 
maining $740 is made up of a distribution of $20 each to 
37 sharehands, solely for household effects. But a further 
analysis shows a still more striking inequality. The 8 
families who have been with us since 1899 constitute but 
little more than 10 per cent, of the total in 1904, but own 
more than 60 per cent, of the total property. They own 
$4,375 worth, or $546.87 per family. 

While there is no question in my mind as to the cash rent 
tenancy being preferable, from the laborer's standpoint, 
to any form of metayer, yet I must not be understood as 
holding that all the advantages by any means accrue to 
the side of the former system. Earlier in this discussion 
I gave an entirely unexaggerated statement of what the 
planter will do in the way of "staking" the sharehand 
who comes to him with a capital consisting only of ability 
to work. Thanks to a crop lien law and a fertile soil, such 
a man can secure advances in my section of the country 
upon the sole security of the crop to be grown by him. 
He has the advantage over the renter of having the planter 
for a partner, and the latter takes all the risk. If dis- 
aster overtake him, the renter may lose his stock and im- 
plements, but the sharehand operates on another's capital. 
At worst he can lose but his labor, and for this he has in any 
possible contingency at least been sheltered, clothed, and 
fed. After all, the net results to the tenant depend far 
more upon his individual efforts and upon his habits, 
whether of extravagance or economy, than upon any fixed 
features incident to one system of tenure or the other. 
Upon every plantation are to be found sharehands who 
make just as much as do any of the renters, and the nature 
of whose tenant relation is entirely of their own choosing. 
A Dumber of accounts could be adduced to illustrate the 
relative results of the two systems, but the personal equa- 
tion is so large a factor as to impair the value of bare figures 



A PLANTATION EXPERIMENT 279 

for purposes of comparison. The two following are selected 
because they are accounts of families equal in all essential 
respects. They are for 1903, and are condensed as much 
as possible. 

Renter: 18£ Acres (15$ in Cotton, 3 in Corn). 
Debits. 

Rent $129.50 

Merchandise 96.75 

Stock feed 52.65 

Blacksmith, doctor, and planting seed 25.58 

Work in crop, picking and ginning 42.60 

Cash 162.48 

$509.56 
Credits. 

Net proceeds of 8 bales of cotton, 4,543 pounds, and 

seed from same $509.56 

Sharehand: 18 Acres (16 in Cotton, 2 in Corn). 
Debits. 

Merchandise $91.85 

Work in crop, picking and ginnins; 40.00 

Cash 196.40 

$328.25 
Credits. 

One-half net proceeds of 10 bales of cotton, 5,327 

pounds, and seed from same $328.25 

The renter made 75 bushels of corn, and the sharehand's 
half of his was 25 bushels. The sharehand made 333 pounds 
of lint cotton per acre, the renter 293 pounds. The latter 
was 27 pounds above the plantation average for the year, 
and 73 pounds above the average yield of renters. The 
sharehand's yield was 67 pounds above the average of the 
plantation and 15 pounds below the average sharehand's. 
The renter had three items on his account which the planter 
has to provide under a share contract, — namely, black- 
smith, stock feed, and planting seed. The sharehand hap- 
pened to have no doctor's bill. The renter drew $4.90 
more in merchandise than the sharehand, but received 
$33.92 less cash. The renter owned two mules, a wagon, 



280 QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS 

and implements, which may be said to have represented his 
operating capital. He also owned a buggy. The share- 
hand operated with plantation stock and implements, but 
owned a riding horse and a cow. 

In immediate bearing upon our experiment and as illus- 
trating the gradual transition from a rent to a share system, 
the most significant figures in the appended table are those 
which show the stock owned by renters, those showing the 
rented acreage, and those giving the number of families 
renting, with per cent, of total number. There are other 
figures, however, of more or less interest in any general 
discussion of plantation economy. Take the acreage produc- 
t ion of lint cotton, for example. The figures show a range 
of from 215 pounds to 471, and illustrate the fluctuations 
that may result from various combinations of yield and 
price. Their study will exhibit the ups and downs of the 
business, — its possibilities and its hazards. The most 
valuable lesson they offer is the heavy advantage shown 
to follow a large yield per acre. 1 In the figures showing 
the amount of cash advanced tenants each year on the two 
accounts of outside work in making their crops and in extra 
picking, we are dealing with two of the most important 
factors in the net results of the negro's crop. These two 
items are shown to have been $4.52 for each bale raised 
in 1902. Even if equally distributed, this would have im- 
posed an average charge that year of $74.17 per family. 
But the amount of such assistance needed or demanded 
by the negro varies all the way from nothing up to enough 
to consume what would otherwise be handsome profits. 
These two items alone during this five-year period would 
have increased the cash balances to our tenants in the total 
suin of $15,248.90. 

1 The fluctuations of yield exhibited here were under conditions well-nigh abso- 
lutely uniform during the five year?,— save in the one respect of weather. Cotton is 
essentially a "weather crop," and this truism points to the fallacy of most of the de- 
ductions and speculations founded upon the indicated yield of 1904. The most 
assured conclusion as to labor and other conditions, and the most solemnly an- 
nounced prediction for ensuing years, may both be rendered absurd by too much, or 
too little, nun during the growing season, by two much while the crop is being 
saved, or by a killing frost too late in the spring, or one too early in the fall. 



A PLANTATION EXPERIMENT 281 

The transactions between the planter and tenant are fre- 
quently utterly devoid of any approach to a proper busi- 
ness basis. This is largely on account of the character 
of the labor, and rests partly on established custom and 
partly on the competition for hands. At all events, out 
of the combination of causes the negro manages to realize 
in much too large measure for his own good the gratification 
of his whims and pleasures. I have yet to know of one so 
deeply in debt or so far behind with his crop as to cause the 
least hesitation in the matter of demands for cash for the 
circus or excursion. But of all plantation customs the 
most pernicious, in my judgment, is that of advancing 
"Christmas money." This is just exactly what its desig- 
nation implies. It is never asked for under any pretext 
of being devoted to some legitimate or substantial use. It 
is drawn for the sole and express purpose of promoting the 
pleasures of the holiday season, which begins, according 
to the recognized plantation calendar, several days before 
the 25th of December, and terminates several days after 
the 1st of January. I have never heard of a dollar of such 
money being diverted from its destined aim. It is spent 
in various and sundry ways, according to the individual 
estimate of what constitutes "a good time." A good part 
goes for railroad fare, — for "riding the train"; the saloon 
and the crap table receive more than their share; some 
goes for cheap finery and pinchbeck jewelry. We tried the 
experiment of putting this matter on a business basis in 
1899. In consequence there was no "Christmas money," 
but we have put out our share since. The figures show the 
aggregate amount on this account to have been $3,034.70. 
This may seem small, but it should be considered in conjunc- 
tion with the accompanying figures, showing the cash bal- 
ances and advances during this same month each year. 
They show that in December during the five years there 
was advanced a total of $7,990.63 in addition to Christmas 
money. The items are placed in juxtaposition, so that the 
significance of the latter annual draft and waste may be 
the more readily appreciated. To illustrate further the 



282 QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS 

amount of cash handled by the negroes, the table also shows 
the cash balances and advances to them during the ginning 
season. This usually begins in September, and runs to 
January, February, or March, according to conditions. 
During these months there was paid our negroes, exclusive 
of advances while the crop was being grown, cash to the 
amount of $44,727.05, an average of $8,945.41 each year. 

In concluding my earlier paper, to which in some sense 
this may be considered a second and final chapter, I said that 
it was impossible for me to judge fairly the effect upon our 
negro labor of the showing at that time exhibited. I may 
quote this statement: "To arrive at a just conclusion on 
this point, at least five years would be required, and only 
such tenants as removed to other places to continue the 
tenant relation could be considered in enumerating the re- 
movals. It would be manifestly unfair, in considering the 
extent and influence of a migratory, restless habit, to attrib- 
ute to it such as were actuated by opportunity and desire 
to purchase land." ' 

We have before us an exhibit of the transactions of a 
somewhat longer period than the one suggested. As far 
as possible, it is confined to a bare statement of fact. It 
is entirely competent for any one interested in the subject 
to study the data presented and reason to his own conclu- 
sions. In judging how far it might be safe to generalize 
from a single plantation, the following suggestions may 
with some possible profit be borne in mind. The opera- 
tions cover a period practically of six years, though all the 
crop data for the last year are not available. The number 
of families covered is 154, and of individuals affected more 
than 1,600. The negroes composing these families came 
from nearly every section of the South, every Southern 
State contributing, with the exception of Texas and Florida. 
The operations extend through years characterized by 
extremes both of yield and price, with an excellent general 
average of each. The plantation management was strongly 
biased in favor of the rent system at the beginning of 1899: 

1 I'n pert and Proceedings , pp. 271, 272. 



A PLANTATION EXPERIMENT 283 

it leans as strongly towards the share system at the close 
of 1904. The relations between management and tenants 
have been uniformly kindly and necessarily most intimate. 
In the main the families have been of good class, orderly, 
and well behaved, but one homicide having occurred among 
them during the six years. No one of the 103 families 
that have removed has undertaken the purchase of land. 
The average age of the heads of families has been about 
forty years. Of the 8 who have remained on the place 
during six years, 4 are over sixty-five, 1 over sixty, 2 over 
and 1 under forty. 

To my mind, the most suggestive fact which these opera- 
tions would seem to establish is, stated conservatively, 
that the attainment of a prosperous condition by the plan- 
tation negro does not influence him sufficiently to create 
an attachment for the local environment which accom- 
plishes his material betterment. This seems to me true, 
unless the removals from such environment are at least in 
some considerable measure influenced by stronger appeals 
to intelligent self-interest than are offered by the condi- 
tions surrounding the initial improvement. This, of course, 
presumes the persistence of normal and friendly relations 
between tenant and management. I take it that in the 
case before us we are justified in eliminating at the outset, 
as one legitimate occasion of removal, if I may use the 
expression, the desire to become a land-owner, inasmuch 
as no attempt was made in such direction. In running 
down the list of recorded causes of removal, I find one, and 
but one, that can be placed in the class of appeals to self- 
interest, and then only by not insisting that such self-interest 
be intelligent. This was the case of several well-to-do 
renters who left us in 1902 because they were offered a 
reduction of land rent of one dollar per acre elsewhere. 
Upon its face such action cannot be criticised. As a matter 
of fact, it emphasized the operation of an unfortunate racial 
trait, — the thoughtless failure to distinguish between the 
simplest forms of real and fictitious advantage, the heedless 
pursuit of the shadow for the substance. The property 



284 QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS 

to which these people removed was run down, its houses 
were scarcely habitable, its drainage was poor, and there 
was not another family on it at the time. The reduced 
rent was a concession to necessity, yet the bait was seized 
as eagerly as though the hook were not visible to the 
foresight even of a child. Within a few weeks, whether 
prompted by characteristic vacillation or by the operation 
of returning common sense, I do not undertake to say, 
some of these families wanted to return to us. 

It would be well-nigh impossible to enumerate the various 
causes, real and imaginary, behind the change of abode of 
the hundred and odd families who left us during these years. 
In several instances, hands left because we were unwilling 
to advance the amount of "Christmas money" to which 
they felt themselves entitled. Some departed with the 
rare frankness of a declaration that they "just wanted a 
change." Family troubles, the separation of husbands 
and wives, also account for their share. Still others went 
because of alleged dissatisfaction with the contract under 
which they had successfully been brought to a state of in- 
dependence. 1 

In saying that I have long since abandoned the hope of 
fathoming the processes of the plantation negro's mind, 
I have "a conscience void of offence" toward these people, 
to whom I have never knowingly been guilty of an unjust 
act or word. I mean simply to give expression to the con- 
viction, speaking of the average, of course, and not of the 
rare exception, that their actions have no logical or rea- 
sonable basis, that they are notional and whimsical, and 
that they are controlled far more by their fancies than by 
their common sense. Not that the negro is to be called 
upon to render to the world a reason for his every act, — to 
account to his critics for the motives behind his comings 
and his goings upon the earth. But the student of sociology 
and economics is interested to discover if it be true, as is 

1 In wiling btoclt, our contract had required the renter to plant enough corn 
to provide sufficient feed. After a number had paid for their mules, they ob- 
jected to this beoauHe corn is not a cash crop. One of the changes incident to the 
iilmndonmont of our experiment was the discontinuance of our comprehensive 
contract, and the substitution of one of a dozen lines in the simplest possible form 
and terms. 



.4 PLANTATION EXPERIMENT 285 

so generally stated, that a certain large and distinct class of 
the world's laboring poulation is characterized by a restless, 
migratory tendency. This interest attaches to the general 
subject, whether the concrete illustration be drawn from 
the fields of the Southern States, from the diamond mines 
of Kimberley, or from the gold workings of the Rand. The 
matters and results treated in this paper merely offer cumu- 
lative evidence to the correctness of a largely entertained 
conviction. It is not maintained that they are a demon- 
stration. But the fact does stand out that, in the matter 
of building up a group of reasonably permanent tenants, 
these negroes signally failed to respond to the influence of 
the most favorable economic conditions with which it was 
possible for a plantation to surround them. This much is 
demonstrated, and I account for it in two ways: first, on 
the hypothesis of a migratory instinct; second, on that of 
a characteristic easy-going indolence, which seeks freedom 
to assert itself, and chafes under restraints which measur- 
ably restrict its enjoyment. The negro race, in the mass, 
is charged with numerous faults and weaknesses. It is 
no purpose of mine to discover new ones or to magnify the 
old. I but give utterance to a sincerely entertained opin- 
ion, based upon many years of close personal observation, 
when I say that these traits to-day present the greatest 
obstacle to the real, general, permanent advancement of 
the race, whether in this country, Africa, or the West Indies. 
I have read a great deal about the negro's "love of home," 
and have heard much of the strength of his "local attach- 
ment," but in a not unkindly search I have been able to 
discover neither the one nor the other among the masses 
of the race. To my mind they are a restless people. Ever 
seeking change, they sometimes wander far afield, and trav- 
erse the boundaries of States in its pursuit. Again, like 
one lost in a forest, they move but in a narrow circle, yet 
always in the same vain, aimless quest. They have been 
wanderers since emancipation gave free play to native in- 
stinct, and I do not see how a love of heme, in the real sense, 
could characterize a people who in the mass know so little 
of such an abode. Certainly, the plantation negro changes 



286 QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS 

his residence far too often for his children to form local 
attachments or to develop anything akin to such a senti- 
ment. I have often been impressed with the peculiar sig- 
nificance which long usage has attached to the very word 
"home" among these people. It has come to mean no more 
than "house," and the two are synonymous terms. When 
the plantation negro starts out in quest of an abiding 
place for another year, he goes in search of another "home." 

On November 26 last the principal of Tuskegee Insti- 
tute gave to the press a statement which has been very 
widely reproduced and commented upon. It recited "the 
main complaints of the colored people," given to him "time 
and time again," as explaining their preference for the 
"uncertain existence" of cities and towns to "comparative 
prosperity upon a farm." I give them in full: "Poor 
dwelling-houses, loss of earnings each year because of un- 
scrupulous employers, high-priced provisions, poor school- 
houses, short school terms, poor school-teachers, bad treat- 
ment generally, lynchings and whitecapping, fear of the 
practice of peonage, a general lack of police protection, 
and want of encouragement." 

There is no intimation here of any possible fault or fail- 
ing on the negro's part. Whether or not the really effective 
causes behind the urban drift observed by Mr. Washington 
in Georgia are essentially different from those behind mi- 
grations from place to place in the Mississippi Delta, we 
need not stop to inquire. My only suggestion is that not 
one charge in this comprehensive catalogue was ever laid at 
our door, yet somehow the fact of local drift and restless 
movement still remains with us an ever-present reality. 
And what I say for ourselves I can say likewise for scores 
of others. I do not say that the complaints recited are not 
real in some counties of the South. I do assert, however, 
that they fail to cover the ground. When the friend of the 
negro masses would know the whole truth behind the forces 
which to-day most militate against the material progress 
of the race, he must go deep below the surface of troubles 
which the white man can remove or rectify. 
Dcnleith, Miss. Alfred Holt Stone. 



.4 PLANTATION EXPERIMENT 



287 



PLANTATION STATISTICS. 



Year. 


1899. 


1900. 


1901. 


1902. 


1903. 


Number of Families. 


58 


59 


61 


69 


75 


Number families leaving 
and per cent, of total . 


26 

44.8% 


13 

22% 


16 

26.2% 


17 
24.6% 


31 

41.3% 


Cotton acreage .... 


1,064 


1,048 


1,348 


1,341 


1,392 


Bales (500 lbs. average) . 


459 


817 


1,270 


1,131 


741 


Lint per acre .... 


215 


3891 


471 


421 


266 


Bales per family . . . 


7.9 


13.8 


20.8 


16.4 


9.8 


Average price, cents . . 


7.50 


9.94 


7.90 


8.08 


11.77 


Value of cotton and seed . 


$21,663.88 


$47,541.66 


$60,742.04 


$54,593.26 


$53,527.73 


Value per acre .... 


$20.36 


$45.36 


$45.06 


$40.71 


$38.45 


Value per family . . . 


$373.51 


$805.79 


$995.77 


$791.20 


$713.70 


Stock of renters and per 
cent, of total on place . 


73 

94.8% 


76 
85.3% 


89 

78.7% 


77 
64.7% 


60 

47.6% 


Cash advanced for work 
in tenants' crops . 


$465.40 


$513.90 


$856.90 


$741.40 


$161.80 


Cash for picking .... 


$759.80 


$1,536.10 


$3,859.55 


$4,376.40 


$1,977.65 


Cash for work and picking 
per bale 


$2.66 


$2.50 


$3.71 


$4.52 


$2.88 


Work and picking per 


$21.12 


$34.40 


$77.32 


$74.17 


$28.52 


Christmas money . . . 


none 


$375.00 


$1,735.35 


$473.85 


$450.50 


Additional cash advanced 
during December . . 


$641.59 


$2,378.58 


$1,871.00 


$1,163.95 


$1,935.51 


Total cash balances and 
advances during gin- 
ning season .... 


$3,077.22 


$12,747.14 


$13,899.96 


$7,436.39 


$7,566.34 


Average per family dur- 
ing ginning season . . 


$53.05 


$216.05 


$227.86 


$107.77 


$100.88 


Number families renting 
and per cent, of total . 


58 
100% 


59 
100% 


53 

86.8% 


45 
65.2% 


36 

48% 


Rented cotton acreage 
and per cent, of total . 


1.064 
100% 


1,048 
100% 


1,200 
89.02% 


884 
65.9% 


761 

54.6% 



1 In a former paper the yield for this year was stated to have been 450 pounds. 
An error was made in the cotton acreage used as the basis of the calculation. The 
above is the corrected figure. The former was an isolated statement, and did not 
affect the accuracy of any other figures given at the time. 



THE INHERITANCE TAX IN THE AMERICAN 
COMMONWEALTHS. 

In the number of this Journal for August, 1904, Mr. 
Huebner published an article on the Inheritance Tax in the 
American Commonwealths. 1 At the time the article ap- 
peared the writer of this note was just completing a similar 
study. Mr. Huebner's work is so well done that little is 
left for another. However, it has seemed worth the while 
to supplement his published results at two points. A tab- 
ular statement of the inheritance tax legislation as it now 
stands will make it possible to ascertain all the important 
provisions of a given law without inconvenience, and a 
fuller examination of the financial significance of the tax 
may be desirable. This note is designed to supplement 
Mr. Huebner's excellent review of the development of the 
State inheritance taxes at these points. 

In the accompanying tables, la and 16, the classes 
of heirs, taxable property, exemptions and rates — these 
being the provisions of most importance — have been indi- 
cated. The object is not to summarize the development 
of the inheritance tax legislation, but to state the important 
provisions of the inheritance tax laws as they now stand. 

To show these provisions conveniently, it has been nec- 
essary to divide the States into two groups. In the first 
group (la) the heirs are divided into two classes, known 
as "direct" and "collateral," and treated accordingly. 
In the second group (16) are five States which discrimi- 
nate between three classes of heirs and apply rates to their 
shares graduated according to class. To these are added 
two States — North Carolina and Wisconsin — where the 
heirs are divided into five classes. 

Inheritance taxes are now being collected in thirty of 
our commonwealths. In but one State — Alabama — has 

1 "The Inheritance Tax in the American Commonwealths," by Solomon Hueb- 
ner, Quarterly Journal o[ Economic*, August, 1904, pp. 529-550. 



